The first bundle of highway projects to be awarded through the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) route involving 10 stretches – six highways along the East Coast in Andhra Pradesh and part of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) – the busy Kolkata-Chennai route and the remaining four located in Gujarat, are estimated to be valued at Rs 6,000 crore, as per ICRA.

The government of Uttar Pradesh is reportedly encouraging its urban centres to fund their developmental and infrastructure projects. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has planned to float municipal bonds worth Rs 1 billion for a multi-storied housing project.

The Union Budget 2018 has struck a fine balance between fiscal prudence and providing growth boosters to the economy. It is a progressive budget and in line with the development priorities of the Government. The Finance Minister has made a strong attempt to pump prime the rural economy, agriculture and infrastructure sector.

The Union Budget presented today is a balanced Budget with a focus on the Agri Sector, Rural Development, Healthcare and a continued thrust on Infrastructure creation. These will collectively provide significant impetus to the revival of growth and creation of employment.

The budget reaffirms continued focus on Infrastructure and programmes such as Smart City mission, AMRUT, NMCG, the Regional Connectivity Scheme (UDAAN) etc. as can be seen by increased outlay by 20% from the previous year. The key takeaway form this budget is the thrust on social and rural infrastructure including health, education, housing, agri-value chain and penetration of digital infrastructure.

This year's budget has primarily focused on three key sectors namely agriculture, healthcare and infrastructure. The proposed plan of the government to provide 10 crore poor and under-privileged people with a medical treatment coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh is indeed a laudable step which will alleviate the problem of the poor to a very large extent as healthcare has always been a problem for most of the population.